This is Day 162 of the Slow Home Project and we need you to join us in our quest to evaluate the design quality of houses in nine North American cities in nine months. Today we have a Design Project featuring a single family home in Philly.
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Slow Home and today we are doing another Design Project! We need your help to re-design a single family house that we found from the Philadelphia area and this will one is guaranteed to be a challenge!
We have chosen a plan called the “Empress” and it is a 2,708 sq ft, 2 storey home located in the Stables community of Worcester Township – about 25 minutes from central Philadelphia.
The “Empress” has some serious design flaws that we need you to address and turn it from a fast house into a Slow Home. It has a terrible 45 degree angled geometry that ruins many of the interior spaces and makes them very difficult to furnish. It also has an awkward entry into the house from the garage and a really average kitchen layout. For the demolition plan, we are removing most of the walls, but leaving the garage, the fireplace and we have re-configured the stairs into a more functional design. If you like, and for bonus points, you can leave the HVAC build out on the left side yard wall.
Here is the program for today’s project:
- Add a new front entry space with a coat closet.
- Make a functional back entry from the garage with a coat closet.
- Put back a kitchen that is appropriate for the size of this plan.
- Add a formal and an informal dining space.
- Add a formal and an informal living space and/ or a study. You will get bonus points if you can creatively combine the spaces without creating wasted space. Remember, the living spaces should also have a good connection to the outdoors.
- Add a properly located guest bath.
- A main floor laundry is not required.
- Make proper use of the fact that the new star is open towards the front door.
Day 162 – PDF
Day 162 – Existing
Day 162 – Demo
Day 162 – Full Symbol Library
Good luck! We are looking forward to seeing your designs. When you are ready, click on the player below to see how John has designed this space.
Join us tomorrow for our “In Detail” segment where we will be reviewing kitchen design in single family houses!